# Do you illegally download?



## #1 bro (Dec 29, 2008)

Simple question, do you illegally download movies, ROMs, music, software, etc. If so, how often? (In the poll, remember to check all that apply). 

Myself, I've illegally downloaded a couple ROMs, and some software once or twice, but I buy all my music (which I'm starting to think isn't the wisest decision) and I don't really give a crap about movies in general, so I wouldn't even _bother_ pirating them.

You?


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## Retsu (Dec 29, 2008)

I pirate because I care!
I am a member of two private torrent sites and use them more frequently than my hard drive would like me to.


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## ultraviolet (Dec 29, 2008)

I used to download music, and I've downloaded a ROM and emulater for an ancient nintendo 64 game. I don't download movies, though.


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## #1 bro (Dec 29, 2008)

Retsu said:


> I pirate because I care!


Very interesting read, thank you!

Thing is, my parents are liberal and open-minded in almost every aspect save for this one - they think piracy is a terrible crime. Considering that my dad is always really interested in what music I've been listening to, I fear that I would get caught if I downloaded too much music without paying for it. :(


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## Harlequin (Dec 29, 2008)

I download music, programmes, programs, films etc all the time.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Dec 29, 2008)

I pirate games a lot, pretty much only PC games nowadays, though. I'm cutting down though.

I pirate music whenever I want more music.

I pirate software I need because a lot of it I can't imagine paying for.

I torrent anime a lot. Used to grab licenced ones, but I hardly do now, almost all unlicenced.

I have pirated one movie in my life. Casablanca. Well worth it, it's not particularly easy to find anyway.


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## Evolutionary (Dec 29, 2008)

I don't at all.


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## Lucas₇₅₅ (Dec 29, 2008)

A ROM and emulator, but that's it. I get movies and music by paying.
Wait, isn't it not illeagal to download a ROM if you have the game? And are emulators even illegal themselves?


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## #1 bro (Dec 29, 2008)

Lucas755 said:


> Wait, isn't it not illeagal to download a ROM if you have the game?


No, it definitely is. People (justifiably) write it off as not _morally_ wrong, because by buying the game, you're not causing the company to lose any sales. Still, from a legal standpoint it's the same crime. 



> And are emulators even illegal themselves?


No.


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## Evolutionary (Dec 29, 2008)

Well...I do download some ROMs that I don't have in game form but that's it...


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## Music Dragon (Dec 29, 2008)

I've never really cared whether it's right or wrong. Even if it is wrong to download illegally, I'm not going to get caught, so it doesn't really matter.

(Fundamental law of the universe: it's not a crime if you get away with it!)


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## Time Psyduck (Dec 29, 2008)

I have never downloaded anything in such a manner in my life.


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## Dannichu (Dec 29, 2008)

I used to download music I couldn't get otherwise (anime theme tunes and such I couldn't find on CD anywhere), and I used to have a Sapphire ROM I played in the time period between it coming out in the US and the time it came out in the UK (at which point I bought Ruby). 

I watch quite a few movies and stuff on youtube and other such places, but again, they're very hard to find/not out in the UK, so I don't feel too bad about it. If I ever found the r2 DVD versions of most of them, I'd buy them right away.


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## Worst Username Ever (Dec 29, 2008)

Hm... I watch some Simpsons episodes at a website, but only these that are not on DVD yet. I also download stuff from Limewire, but only because I'm looking for "special" songs that's hard to get.


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## Rwr4539 (Dec 29, 2008)

I pirated music, ROMs, games, software, and I even got a HDD image of an arcade game. No movies, though, since I can't be bothered.
EDIT: I'm an idiot and clicked movies in the poll.


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## Blaziking the God General (Dec 29, 2008)

Zeta Reticuli said:


> No, it definitely is. People (justifiably) write it off as not _morally_ wrong, because by buying the game, you're not causing the company to lose any sales. Still, from a legal standpoint it's the same crime.


But what if the game is no longer manufactured?


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## Bombsii (Dec 29, 2008)

It seems to casual to be a major issue. I don't illegally download but I do watch stuff on the internet.


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## opaltiger (Dec 29, 2008)

Music Dragon said:


> I've never really cared whether it's right or wrong. Even if it is wrong to download illegally, I'm not going to get caught, so it doesn't really matter.
> 
> (Fundamental law of the universe: it's not a crime if you get away with it!)


you live in _Sweden_, of course you're never going to be caught


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## Music Dragon (Dec 29, 2008)

opaltiger said:


> you live in _Sweden_, of course you're never going to be caught


So what happens in the rest of the world?


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## Jolty (Dec 29, 2008)

yes I do
I refuse to elaborate further I'm really paranoid about this


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## opaltiger (Dec 29, 2008)

Music Dragon said:


> So what happens in the rest of the world?


in the rest of the world, they arrest one random person in a million and charge him millions of dollars they know he cannot possibly pay


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## Tarvos (Dec 29, 2008)

In the Netherlands, downloading isn't even illegal. Uploading is, though, but downloading isn't.

So basically a major lol to the thread title.


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## Harley Quinn (Dec 29, 2008)

Heck yes.

We used to buy pirated movies from this dude every Friday(and they were pretty good quality, too!).

Nowadays it's just mp3s for me.


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## Butterfree (Dec 29, 2008)

Generally not. However, I have gotten into the habit of downloading fansubs of the Pokémon movies (have done it for the eighth onwards), because since they don't show them in Iceland anymore, the only alternative would be to order the English dubs off Amazon or something, and I _can't stand_ the English voice cast, old and new. Well, that or get the unsubbed Japanese version, which I wouldn't understand.

Then I've gotten ROMs of a couple of Pokémon games. Let's see, I got a Crystal one (while already owning the game myself) in order to hear the legendary beast battle music again, I got a Japanese Emerald one so that I could see what the animations looked like (and only played it up to Rustboro City or so), and I got a Diamond one to see if No$GBA actually worked as a DS emulator (it was too slow on my computer to really be playable).

...of course, then I have a boyfriend whose first reaction upon hearing of or remembering anything curious or halfway decent is to find a torrent of it and/or see if there's a low-quality online streaming of it somewhere, and I've sorta maybe gotten him to agree to download Repo! The Genetic Opera for me. :D But that's just because it's not as if they're showing it over here, and I'm sure as hell not importing the DVD until I know it's worth my money. And then there's all the times I've really wanted to watch some movie or TV show and while _I_ would go and rent the DVD, he just wanted to download it instead. Not my fault, is it? :o

That Platinum ROM I've been playing was completely his idea, I tell you! I hadn't even told him Platinum existed!

...so yeah, I haven't done much of it myself, but I've benefited quite a lot from how much he does of it.


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## Gigamelon (Dec 29, 2008)

The Organ Bag goes to the library and borrows an occasional CD.  I swipe it, rip all the tracks to my hard drive and occasionally play them.  When I feel like it, I share them too.

I don't feel like it very often.

I don't bother with games or films: if I want to see a film, I'll find a streamed copy online and watch that.  If I see a game I wouldn't mind playing at some point...  Well, I just don't bother.  It'll turn up eventually in a bargain bin somewhere.


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## theinsanething (Dec 29, 2008)

Mostly mp3s for Video Game Music.

I have the occasional ROM though.

As for Videos and Movies, no way, it'd take too long.


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## turbler (Dec 29, 2008)

R4DS, all the time...


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## Doctor Jimmy (Dec 29, 2008)

I used to pirate music, until I realized that CDs have much better audio quality than that crap in the Pirate Bay. Even if the MP3s are noted to be at 320kbps, there's no way of knowing if that's what the ripper originally imported the CD at. Also, there's something special about having the physical copy of the music, and seeing the artwork, the CDs, the linear notes...and if more people bought music on CDs, then record companies won't have to put DRM on their CDs, and perhaps producers would master their music in better audio quality. The only thing I hate about buying music is the annoying plastic shit on new CDs. Its a real pain in the ass to have to remove that (maybe that's why people pirate music?)


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## #1 bro (Dec 29, 2008)

Blaziking said:


> But what if the game is no longer manufactured?


I'm pretty sure it's still illegal in the eyes of the law, but _no one cares if you go ahead and do it anyway._ You're not going to get arrested for it, and unless God is like the biggest dick ever, you're probably not going to go to hell for it either either. 

People saying things like this in general pisses me off, people always trying to justify Limewire being legal by saying "no, it's not illegal if you pay for some of the songs!" or "it's not illegal if blah blah blah blah". It's like, why do you even care? People need to realize the difference between illegal activities and morally wrong activities. >(

EDIT: And, of course, activities not approved by society in general.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Dec 29, 2008)

Zeta Reticuli said:


> People saying things like this in general pisses me off, people always trying to justify Limewire being legal by saying "no, it's not illegal if you pay for some of the songs!" or "it's not illegal if blah blah blah blah". It's like, why do you even care? People need to realize the difference between illegal activities and morally wrong activities. >(


I'll have to agree with you there. If it's something distributed through retail channels, then it's illegal, no two ways about it...


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## Tarvos (Dec 29, 2008)

Zeta Reticuli said:


> I'm pretty sure it's still illegal in the eyes of the law, but _no one cares if you go ahead and do it anyway._ You're not going to get arrested for it, and unless God is like the biggest dick ever, you're probably not going to go to hell for it either either.
> 
> People saying things like this in general pisses me off, people always trying to justify Limewire being legal by saying "no, it's not illegal if you pay for some of the songs!" or "it's not illegal if blah blah blah blah". It's like, why do you even care? People need to realize the difference between illegal activities and morally wrong activities. >(
> 
> EDIT: And, of course, activities not approved by society in general.


How is downloading morally wrong?


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## #1 bro (Dec 29, 2008)

It isn't! That's the point I was trying to prove, that people are too busy making sure that they can justify that the activities they do are legal, when they should be justifying that the activities they do are not morally wrong.


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## Retsu (Dec 29, 2008)

Better question:
Why should poor people not get to experience such a large part of modern culture?


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## Vyraura (Dec 30, 2008)

I do it all the time. I love doing it. It makes me feel good inside, like a childish 'I'm getting free stuff' feeling. Only thing I don't do is ROMs, because I haven't ever wanted one.


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## #1 bro (Dec 30, 2008)

What's a good site to download music for free, with no viruses and decent quality? (and by decent quality, I mean about the quality iTunes sells their songs for)


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

A private tracker, but it can be hard to find invites to one. I'm afraid of public trackers - I know Demonoid, for example, doesn't really do a whole lot to encrypt your information.

If you don't mind traditional downloading, there are a number of awesome LiveJournal communities like mp3_share with large communities that can pretty much get you anything you request. (Although at the time of writing, it doesn't look like LJ's up... oh well.)

For the record, songs you buy on iTunes are _terrible_ quality. 128 kb/s makes me die a little inside.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Dec 30, 2008)

Retsu said:


> I'm afraid of public trackers - I know Demonoid, for example, doesn't really do a whole lot to encrypt your information.


Demonoid is semi-public. Non-registered folks can only torrent newer torrents.

Registration is closed right now and I have no invite codes.

For music I ordinarily use LimeWire. For torrenting music, The Pirate Bay and Demonoid work for me. Nipponsei and DeltaAnime for anime music.

If iTunes really is at 128 kb/s, then it shouldn't be too hard to find stuff of that quality. Or better.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

It's still a public tracker. I have an account there, too, but I only use it as a last resort.



> For music I ordinarily use LimeWire.


You're not serious, are you?


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## #1 bro (Dec 30, 2008)

Retsu said:


> For the record, songs you buy on iTunes are _terrible_ quality. 128 kb/s makes me die a little inside.


maybe we aren't all a Mr. "Music Is Serious Business" Audiophile person like you are, Retsu. :P

EDIT: Also, I heard LimeWire has tons of viruses so I would like to avoid that :|


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Dec 30, 2008)

Zeta Reticuli said:


> EDIT: Also, I heard LimeWire has tons of viruses so I would like to avoid that :|


In my experience, that's only if you don't know what you're doing. If you don't, then do avoid LimeWire. =P

Really, though the suspicious files stick out. And have faith in your firewall. =P


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

Even to a casual listener 128 kb/s is pretty disgusting. 192 is typically the standard for MP3 encodings (or V2 at least), with hardcore audiophiles (*guilty*) being too snobby for anything that isn't lossless, OGG, or a V0 MP3.

Limewire is crawling with malware, transcodes, and disturbingly bad rips. I avoid it like the plague.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Dec 30, 2008)

Lossless files are fun. Unfortunately, they take up a lot of space.

Why isn't this thread in Entertainment, anyway?


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

I suppose because this thread is about the _act_ of downloading material illegally as opposed to discussing the material itself.


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## Dannichu (Dec 30, 2008)

Retsu said:


> Better question:
> Why should poor people not get to experience such a large part of modern culture?


That's a pretty bad argument for downloading. Other such questions could be "Why should poor people not have cars and 6-bedroom houses?".


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## IIMarckus (Dec 30, 2008)

Dannichu said:


> That's a pretty bad argument for downloading. Other such questions could be "Why should poor people not have cars and 6-bedroom houses?".


If cars and large houses were available for free, why not? The auto and construction industries would be the only ones to lose out.


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## Shiny Grimer (Dec 30, 2008)

> Wait, isn't it not illeagal to download a ROM if you have the game?


No. It's only legal if you _rip the copy yourself and use it for back-up purposes._ I'd love to be able to do that since I'm pretty wary of ROM sites, but I don't have the materials to do it for every system that I own. :P

As for this, mainly just music and very rarely videos. I've only once downloaded an emulator and ROM and those files no longer exist on my computer. I've never downloaded programs or movies.



> If cars and large houses were available for free, why not? The auto and construction industries would be the only ones to lose out.


You could argue that it's stealing and that the makers of the houses/cars wouldn't get their compensation.

I would buy more stuff except that I don't have the money to do so and it's so inconvenient to actually have to go anywhere.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

Dannichu said:


> That's a pretty bad argument for downloading. Other such questions could be "Why should poor people not have cars and 6-bedroom houses?".


Because by giving them cars and six-bedroom houses, you are taking something away from someone else, whether it be the profit that the company would make or whoever owned it originally. Downloading music has no such effects, and actually benefits music as a whole.


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## opaltiger (Dec 30, 2008)

Dannichu said:


> That's a pretty bad argument for downloading. Other such questions could be "Why should poor people not have cars and 6-bedroom houses?".


There are a limited number of cars and 6-bedroom houses. Data can be copied an unlimited number of times, at no cost. Quite a large difference.


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## Shiny Grimer (Dec 30, 2008)

opaltiger said:


> There are a limited number of cars and 6-bedroom houses. Data can be copied an unlimited number of times, at no cost. Quite a large difference.


It can be argued that by not buying the music, you are still taking away profits that the company and artist could have gained otherwise.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

... said:


> It can be argued that by not buying the music, you are still taking away profits that the company and artist could have gained otherwise.


I can't emphasize the awesomeness of this article enough.
It's long, but it's _so_ enlightening. Everyone here should read it.


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## #1 bro (Dec 30, 2008)

... said:


> It can be argued that by not buying the music, you are still taking away profits that the company and artist could have gained otherwise.


I don't know the exact number, but the artists get very little amount of each record sale. The label takes most of it for themselves. The artists get even less if you purchase their albums on iTunes. In fact, I think that when Radiohead basically gave out their In Rainbows album for free, the artists made about as much money as they would off of a normal album, due to all the money going straight into Radiohead's pockets. Most of artists' money comes from concerts and merchandise, if I'm not mistaken. 

Also, much of piracy _isn't_ lost record sales. I'm curious enough about, say, the new Kanye West album to pirate it, but since almost everyone I know has told me it's terrible, I'm not going to spend my cash on it. And, in fact, people often end up buying physical CDs if they like an album enough. I own ROMs of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World, but they kicked ass so much that I bought the games off of the Virtual Console, which I might not have done if I hadn't played the ROMs. So in that respect, piracy actually increased sales. 

The other thing is that I doubt most artists really _care_ all that much if you pirate their music. Lots of underground acts give away their music for free anyway in order to spread the word, and all the major bands like Metallica already have private planes and whatnot so who even cares. :|



Retsu said:


> A private tracker, but it can be hard to find invites to one. I'm afraid of public trackers - I know Demonoid, for example, doesn't really do a whole lot to encrypt your information.
> 
> If you don't mind traditional downloading, there are a number of awesome LiveJournal communities like mp3_share with large communities that can pretty much get you anything you request. (Although at the time of writing, it doesn't look like LJ's up... oh well.)
> 
> For the record, songs you buy on iTunes are _terrible_ quality. 128 kb/s makes me die a little inside.


I don't think any of these options would work for me, sadly. If public trackers are really as risky as you say they are, then I suppose I should stay away from them, and I'm _never_ going to get an invite to a private tracking considering how all my real life friends just use LimeWire and I don't really have any internet friends (more like... internet acquaintances), and then I don't have a LiveJournal. 

aargh, I'll find something.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

Note that everything in the first part of Zeta's post applies to _major labels_. Small independent labels, on the other hand, are for the most part (with only very few exceptions) deserving of any support they can receive. Thankfully, about 95% of my music is from an independent label, so I always be sure to buy the CD if I enjoy it enough. :) Though that's just me personally...


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## see ya (Dec 30, 2008)

Yes, to a small degree. Most of my music is ripped from CDs, but I'll go download a song or two occasionally. Most of what I download are ROMs, and I'm pretty picky (RPGs only, generally, as I can't stand playing platformers with a keyboard)

Generally, anything that's from a major label's free game. My occasional picking-up of a song or two or an old Nintendo game that's not even drawing a profit anymore isn't going to hurt them.

And speaking of audiophiles...I find it really ironic that I have extremely sensitive hearing, but am not audio-snobbish at all. I'll pretty much take a song whatever quality I can get, so long as it isn't "sounds like it's creaking out of a 20 year-old stereo" bad.


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## s k (Dec 30, 2008)

I'm running pirated XP right now.


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## Exdeath (Dec 30, 2008)

I download ROMs and emulators to play really old games, and that's about it.


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## Shiny Grimer (Dec 30, 2008)

Retsu said:


> I can't emphasize the awesomeness of this article enough.
> It's long, but it's _so_ enlightening. Everyone here should read it.


I want to read it, but my computer blocks it. :( Quotes, please?



Zeta Reticuli said:


> I don't know the exact number, but the artists get very little amount of each record sale. The label takes most of it for themselves. The artists get even less if you purchase their albums on iTunes. In fact, I think that when Radiohead basically gave out their In Rainbows album for free, the artists made about as much money as they would off of a normal album, due to all the money going straight into Radiohead's pockets. Most of artists' money comes from concerts and merchandise, if I'm not mistaken.


I'm aware of that; however, they still lose any amount of money that they could have made, and the label definitely loses money.



> Also, much of piracy _isn't_ lost record sales. I'm curious enough about, say, the new Kanye West album to pirate it, but since almost everyone I know has told me it's terrible, I'm not going to spend my cash on it. And, in fact, people often end up buying physical CDs if they like an album enough. I own ROMs of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World, but they kicked ass so much that I bought the games off of the Virtual Console, which I might not have done if I hadn't played the ROMs. So in that respect, piracy actually increased sales.


I'm sorry, but how many people actually do that? Plenty of people would just download the torrent and they would never buy the album whether they like it or not. You can't count on people to essentially buy something they already have unless it includes something else.

Imagine this. If you could get a version of a CD in stores that was exactly the same but was free and you could get it at your own convenience without having to go anywhere, would you really buy that same CD again?



> The other thing is that I doubt most artists really _care_ all that much if you pirate their music. Lots of underground acts give away their music for free anyway in order to spread the word, and all the major bands like Metallica already have private planes and whatnot so who even cares. :|


I know there are plenty of artists who care. Stealing from the rich is still stealing, no matter how you try to justify it.

I'd like to clarify at this point that I am not personally against illegal downloading; I am defending it for the sake of it.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

Skymin said:


> And speaking of audiophiles...I find it really ironic that I have extremely sensitive hearing, but am not audio-snobbish at all. I'll pretty much take a song whatever quality I can get, so long as it isn't "sounds like it's creaking out of a 20 year-old stereo" bad.


Yeah, there's probably no reason to use a lossless file unless you plan to make heavy use of equalization, big dB gain, etc. If you just listen to music in your player of choice and don't do much else, there's no reason to use anything higher than a 192 kb/s (V2) MP3.


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## Tarvos (Dec 30, 2008)

192 is good enough for me. If I want higher quality, I have the cd of choice anyway probably. I buy CD's of the artists I like... I support them. But artists don't make money off CD's; the labels do. So buy independent label CD's, not so many major label ones unless you like the artists.

And if you enjoy their music and wanna support them, go to shows. Artists make more money off shows and merch than anything else.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

Definitely. Record labels have absolutely no control over merchandise or shows, so it's all fair game.

Another reason I like to support independent labels is because their practices aren't completely corrupt like the RIAA whores. Independent labels are typically extremely supportive of their bands, doing their best to get their artists' names out there... after all, that's the only way they'll survive.


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## opaltiger (Dec 30, 2008)

> I'm sorry, but how many people actually do that?


Way more than you'd expect.


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## Harlequin (Dec 30, 2008)

I'm not taking anyone's profits because _I wouldn't have bought it anyway_.


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## Retsu (Dec 30, 2008)

It's funny - looking at all of the albums I bought for myself within the last month (at least 15 albums), I realize that I wouldn't have even known about any of the artists if I hadn't downloaded their work already.


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## Valor (Dec 30, 2008)

Used to do a lot of Nintendo, Game Boy, and SNES emulating. It eventually cooled down, then I got a bit into N64 emulation (Got pretty far in Banjo Tooie thanks to a decent PC controller), and now I don't save for arcade games. Right now the only game I have downloaded for my laptop outside of Steam downloads is BloodStorm, which I only downloaded for the sole purpose of reviewing that piece of shit. 

Music wise, not very often. If I'm not listening to it off of Project Playlist, then I'm probably getting the CD. Which is rare.


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## Shiny Grimer (Dec 31, 2008)

Harlequin said:


> I'm not taking anyone's profits because _I wouldn't have bought it anyway_.


You may not have bought it, but plenty of people would have bought it were it not for the comfort and inexpensiveness of free mp3s/whatever.



Retsu said:


> It's funny - looking at all of the albums I bought for myself within the last month (at least 15 albums), I realize that I wouldn't have even known about any of the artists if I hadn't downloaded their work already.


I can say this for plenty of artists myself; I wouldn't like ABBA as much as I do now were it not for Youtube. I wouldn't have discovered Angelique Kidjo, Joni Mitchell, or Helen Sjöholm. I am quite glad that we have Youtube.


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## nothing to see here (Jan 1, 2009)

Just ROMs and music for me.

In the case of ROMs, I'd much rather play video games on a real system, so I've mostly just downloaded ROMs of games that are so old that they're impossible to find anywhere (or ones I want to mess around with and make goofy hacks.)

As for music, I downloaded a handful of songs a few years ago, but that's all.  Everything else on my MP3 player comes from CDs that either I or one of my parents actually own.  Downloading MP3s is too much work to be worth it anyway (especially if you have a crappy dial-up connection.)


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## ignore_this_acct (Jan 2, 2009)

I download roms and music,thats all


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## opaltiger (Jan 2, 2009)

> Downloading MP3s is too much work to be worth it anyway (especially if you have a crappy dial-up connection.)


It takes me a search and three clicks to start downloading something. How is this too much work? o.o


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## Minish (Jan 2, 2009)

I don't use torrents or anything, I download music mp3s from uploaded files (sendspace, etc.) - I guess this is illegal since I didn't buy it?

I don't download anything else though at all, much less anything illegal. :P


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## RainbowRayquaza (Jan 2, 2009)

2 ROMs, that is all.


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## OrangeAipom (Jan 2, 2009)

I've downloaded an emulator, but I already owned the game system. I have illegal movies/tv shows, but they're already on a CD of some sort, so it's not downloading.

I would illegally download if I wasn't lazy, though.


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## Zora of Termina (Jan 2, 2009)

I personally haven't downloaded anything illegally but my mom did for a music CD for my 16th birthday.
I do however, intend on checking out some new music after my speakers get replaced, and I don't wanna buy it in case I dun like it, so. :/


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## #1 bro (Jan 4, 2009)

so

to all you computer-literate technogeeks on this forum, I have a question. when using torrents, are there any precautions one should take, other than "don't download suspicious looking files, stay off of public trackers"? 

I have PeerGuardian, so I dunno how much risk that removes


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## Retsu (Jan 4, 2009)

Use SSL if your tracker supports it.


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## Alexi (Jan 4, 2009)

*just hopped off LimeWire*

I just download music though, anything else would make my computer commit suicide.


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## H20firefly (Jan 4, 2009)

i'm mainly forced to pirate music and films for people and in fact i spent the whole christmas period with bit torrent open on my computer

but regardless of that i'm illegally downloading a film as i speak (Saw, for me and my cousin)


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## Jetx (Jan 4, 2009)

I don't illegally download. I get music off people I know a lot, but other than that...
I don't know. Music just seems to have more value to me when I haven't just reeled it in from some website/software. Don't think anything is wrong with it, though.


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## Retsu (Jan 4, 2009)

Believe me, I'll take physical over digital anyway. I do download music regularly, but I probably buy more CDs than your average person anyway.


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## Fredie (Jan 4, 2009)

I have downloaded some ROMs, some software, a few films. I don't download a lot of music though.


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## Eevee (Jan 4, 2009)

On the one hand, media giants are greedy pigs trying to force everyone to stick with archaic dying notions of sales and ownership.

On the other hand, pirates generally do it just because they can and then rationalize it after the fact with "oh I wouldn't have bought it anyway" and "well I buy it if I like it", as if they are so important as to decide when a producer deserves their precious 99 cents.

Everyone sucks.


I buy anything I can possibly obtain digitally and DRM-free.  Otherwise, I avoid it if it's software and find it by other means if it's media.


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## Abwayax (Jan 4, 2009)

I suspect OP of being an FBI agent, so I refuse to answer.

However,


Eevee said:


> Everyone sucks.


QFT.


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## Lady Grimdour (Jan 4, 2009)

Nope.


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## #1 bro (Jan 4, 2009)

Number 100 said:


> I suspect OP of being an FBI agent, so I refuse to answer.


awwwwww

you got me


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## Crazy Linoone (Jan 14, 2009)

You forgot _anime_.

I only download anime so I can watch it in high quality, subbed. If there's high-quality streams, then I'll just watch that.

Downloading anime isn't that bad, methinks, as long as you don't use it for your own profit. One, these things don't get released in anywhere that's not Japan properly, and the American dubs is _horrible_. I _hate_ them. So I go for the original Japanese-dubbed fansubbed ones, which comes out before the American companies even notice them yet. 

The other problem is that actual legit episodes are hard to locate: I don't have the anime channels, and they don't air anime that I want to watch. And all their anime are dubbed, which makes me an unhappy fangirl. 

Also, there's also the things about "if nobody put that anime on the internet, I would have never gotten obsessed with it and would have never bought their products" that kind of things.

And yes, this is awesome. Read it, everyone!


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## ___urnamz2longfixit___ (Jan 14, 2009)

Music Dragon said:


> (Fundamental law of the universe: it's not a crime if you get away with it!)


That's pretty much what I told myself when I downloaded utorrent. I've downloaded a couple of ROMs and _a lot_ of music in my time, but my downloading rate is about to soar through the roof now that I've been given an activation code for a popular members-only torrent site. It's not like I'll get caught though so I don't care.


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## Jack_the_White (Jan 16, 2009)

I used to get roms all the time, but when I got my own computer, I just never got around to getting more.


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